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Arizona's law excites state GOP

Republican candidates for governor, following the example of the Western state, are competing on who will crack down the hardest on illegal immigration.

Most recently, former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal aired a campaign commercial calling for local law enforcement to deport illegal aliens. They're costing Georgia taxpayers more than $1 billion, he says in the ad.

"It is the officer on the street that sees the problem first," he said in an interview.

Deal's number came from a recent Federation for American Immigration Reform report that actually puts the cost at $1.6 billion, he said. The Immigration Policy Center, though, cast doubt on the FAIR report, saying it included the cost of educating children who courts have ruled must be allowed to attend school. It also does not take into account the wages illegal immigrants spend and the taxes they pay, IPC said.

Deal took credit for a federal law requiring Medicaid recipients to show proof of citizenship. Since the law took effect in 2006, Georgia's Medicaid rolls dropped for three years, until the economy turned sour in 2008.

"I can't tell you that all that drop was due to verification, but I think it's clear that it was the reason for a big part of that drop," he said.

Other explanations could be that the economy improved from 2005 to 2007, and officials also started requiring proof of income as well as citizenship to qualify for Medicaid, but it's impossible to tell, said Alan Essig, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

Deal is not alone in promising to send illegal immigrants home.

Former state Sen. Eric Johnson, one of the architects of state immigration reform laws passed in 2006 and 2007, is calling for businesses, schools and colleges to require proof of citizenship. He wants to ban illegal immigrants from attending public universities and pull the licenses of businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Karen Handel is touting the endorsement of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law requiring police to check the citizenship status of anyone they detain. Handel backs a similar law in Georgia. As secretary of state, she also tried to set up a system to stop illegal immigrants from voting, which the U.S. Justice Department said red-flagged too many minority citizens.

Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine also supports passing a law similar to Arizona's in Georgia. And all four candidates have criticized the Obama Administration for challenging the Arizona law in court.

An Arizona-style law is a "fool's errand," said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. If they were serious, Republicans would be focusing on ensuring that farms and poultry plants hire only citizens - but they won't, because doing so would cripple the agriculture industry, he said.

"They're playing politics and not really being sensible on how to solve this issue," Gonzalez said.

State Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, plans to introduce an immigration bill that will "strengthen enforcement measures, particularly in the area of identifying and prosecuting illegal aliens who have committed additional violations while in Georgia," he said in an e-mail. The bill still is being written, he said.

State law already allows police to check the citizenship of people they arrest. The existing law already is strong, Mullis said, but a potential lawsuit would not deter lawmakers from going further.

State-level Republicans say they're tackling immigration reform because the federal government won't do its job. Deal called it the No. 2 issue behind jobs because of the sheer number of illegal immigrants in Georgia.

An estimated 480,000 illegal immigrants lived in Georgia in 2009, up 115 percent from 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That's the largest percentage increase of any state.

The Homeland Security report "quite frankly, is shocking," Deal said.

"There's something happening in our state that's not happening in other states," he said.

After a failed attempt to tackle immigration reform at the national level in 2007 - Republicans split on whether to support a path to citizenship for law-abiding illegal immigrants who are already in the U.S. - President Obama and other Democratic leaders are pushing it back to the forefront.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, at a town hall meeting in Athens on Thursday, joined the growing chorus of conservative voices calling for a tough Arizona-style immigration law in Georgia. He also called for making English the official U.S. language and ending birthright citizenship enshrined in the 14th Amendment; in other words, denying citizenship to non-citizens' children who are born in the U.S.

"We're being invaded, and we need to stop the invasion," he said.

Broun is "undermining the Constitution" by opposing birthright citizenship, and he is not helping to find a solution, Gonzalez said.

"He needs to go to work in Congress rather than demagogue on the issue," he said.

Broun has introduced five immigration bills, but none gained any traction.

Georgia Democrats largely have been silent on the issue. When asked about illegal immigration, Democratic candidates for governor have said it is a federal issue and the federal government should enforce the law.